Mad World
by Hodgerhosen
Summary: A sociopath deals with a sudden death, and the meaning behind it. -Spoilers for The Great Game-


Mad World

He ran through alley, coming out onto a well-lit street. He pushed past throngs of faceless people as he sprinted as only absolute desperation could motivate a man to do. He had to get away. Away from the rubble. Away from the scent of seared flesh that still clung to his blood-spattered clothing. Away from the blackened faces and the staring, lifeless blue eyes of the man who had shielded him from the explosion, from death. And he didn't know how to handle it. He couldn't. He couldn't fathom _why _John had done it.

Sherlock had had it figured out. He would trigger the explosion and submerge John and himself in the swimming pool, to ride out the shockwaves of the blast. It was crude, unrefined, but it would have saved them. Both of them. It would have preserved their lives long enough to receive medical attention to treat whatever scrapes and wounds they received in the process. Sherlock worked it out—he had found a solution to their situation. A solution which did not play out the way he had planned. It did not fall into place in the easy, calculated way that Sherlock had reasoned it out. He had allowed for some deviation—namely, he expected that the reaction time would be limited. Burns were inevitable, wounds from fallen debris likely, and perhaps even a gunshot wound from the hidden sniper, but death had not been probable. He had even calculated a delayed reaction time from John. Momentary surprise, panic even. In the split second before the blast, Sherlock would have physically propelled John towards the safety of the water, following him immediately. It could have worked. It didn't work.

John did not fall easily into the well-formulated plans he had put together. The blast had gone off, just as he had intended, and John had exhibited the momentary delay in response that he had anticipated. Sherlock made up for this, though, grabbing him with the intent of driving them into the body of water at his side. In the split second before they would have, had the plan gone right, hit the water—John reacted in way that Sherlock had not accounted for. John, reeling from the force, tackled him backwards against the concrete frantically, covering the taller man's body with his own—shielding it with his own.

Sherlock ran. The circumstances cycled continuously through his mind. Images of John's burning corpse staring at him, the split-second tackle. He was unable to grasp why John would have _done _that. The water would have protected them. Sherlock would have saved him. Why had he reacted like that? They could have both survived. John must have known that his actions would lead to his own death. Why would he choose to die? It had obviously occurred to Sherlock that John had acted to save his life, either out of instinct or deliberation. It was split-second. It was most likely instinctual. But _why _was it instinctual? Why would it be instinctual to John to save his life, Sherlock's life, and not his own? Why hadn't, even if he had acted, out of obligation or desire or what-have-you, to save Sherlock's life- why hadn't he thought to save both of their lives, John's life? The pool had been less than an arm's length from them. They would have made it. It wasn't hard to deduce that falling towards the pool would have been the best option to ensure survival for both of them. But, he remembered, John's first response was never to reason things out. He felt, and he reacted.

Sherlock found himself outside the door of 221 B Baker Street. His hand shook as he felt around his coat. He didn't have a key on his person. He stared at his hand briefly, holding it against the door to stop its movement. It unsettled him. His own reaction unsettled him. Though, he reasoned, he had just endured an explosion. As for his mental state, it wasn't unusual for him to become unsettled at the prospect of not understanding something. Perhaps if he worked it out, the chaos would stop. If he solved the problem, he could go back to way he had been before John. John had been a useful alternative to the skull currently resting on the mantelpiece, though he had been kidnapped rather often. He had been very accepting of Sherlock, though, and the companionship was not unpleasant. It would be difficult to replace John. And then, standing outside of his flat, it occurred to Sherlock that John had willingly chosen to end his life for no other reason than to save Sherlock's. How would he ever be able to replace that? Why would he want to? Why couldn't he have John back? John accepted Sherlock, liked him, enough to sacrifice his life for him. The chaos raged. Sherlock understood _why _John had acted as he did. He understood motives as triggers for actions—emotional motives. He _understood._ John had acted to save Sherlock's life because Sherlock's wellbeing, at that moment, meant more to him than his own. What Sherlock failed to grasp, however, though he desperately attempted, was what it must have felt like to choose death for the sake of another person. His hand trembled against the door.

He had never regretted his inability to form emotional attachments with others. From his perspective, they were an unnecessary complication to the lives of most people. They were the motives for murders, lies, self-deception- more energy was wasted on these attachments than he could understand. And yet, for a moment, as a laugh from the street caused him to turn sharply towards the source of the noise, he observed two young women walking side by side, laughing and drawing what seemed to be enjoyment from each other's company—from each other. Sherlock imagined, at that moment, that perhaps John had drawn a similar enjoyment from his own company. He tried to well up a similar feeling of attachment to John, and wondered if what he felt equaled what John had felt. He supposed that his life without John would be less preferable than life with John. Was this what John had felt? Was this feeling enough to motivate him to save John's life at the expense of his own? Again, Sherlock fell back to logic. Surely, it would have been preferable for both of them to have lived. He had planned to ensure both of their survival. Their life would have been relatively unchanged from what it had been. Surely this would have been preferable. Why…couldn't John have come to that conclusion?

His attempt at testing his connection to John left him exhausted and confused. He still felt as though he were still missing something. He had no comparable experience to test his connection to John _with_. The door opened beneath his hand and a startled yelp escaped from Mrs. Hudson, who had obviously been about to go to the store, as she clutched the now crumpled grocery list in her clenched hand.

"Oh, Sherlock, you started me," she breathed, polite and smiling as she noticed his shaking hand. "Are you alright, dear? Here, come inside," she ushered him into the living room, seating him and popping into the kitchen to put on the kettle for tea.

John's things were strewn throughout the room. It was reasonable that they would be. John hadn't anticipated his own death when leaving the flat, Sherlock supposed. Sherlock wondered what he would do with John's things. Would he simply dispose of them? Perhaps he'd contact Harry to remove them. He stood suddenly, walking to the shelf and grasping his violin, swinging it smoothly against his chin. His mind was uncharacteristically chaotic. The shrieking scrapes his bow elicited from the violin echoed this. A string snapped.

Mrs. Hudson reentered the room holding two cups of tea, undisturbed by his playing. Over the howling of the violin, she spoke, "When John gets back, could you—"

"John is dead."

Porcelain shattered.

Later, as he watched Mrs. Hudson weep, Sherlock came to the conclusion that his own connection to John was indeed different from those of others, different even from John's own attachment to him. Still singed and coated with John's blood, Sherlock stood, wordlessly exiting the flat, intent on intercepting Lestrade before he came to too many incorrect conclusions.

AN: I used some creative liberty with this, mostly with the force of the explosion.


End file.
